Eutelsat suffers protests from Med Nuçe closure

Paris-based satellite operator Eutelsat was faced last week with continued protests from supporters of Kurdish Med Nuçe and Newroz TV channels. Eutelsat has taken the channels down following objections. Med Nuçe ceased being carried on October 3rd while Newroz went dark on October 11th.

The past few days have seen protestors in Paris hand out flyers calling for more protests, and pasting messages onto the Eutelsat building. A daytime tent was also placed on the street with a banner saying “Med Nuçe is the voice of the Turkish people”.

October 21st saw similar protests spread to Stockholm in Sweden, where the Sweden Democratic Kurdish Society Center and Sara Kurdish Women’s Union were active outside the French embassy.

Med Nuçe is also seeking reinstatement of its channel via a criminal complaint against Eutelsat and is requesting a judicial injunction to see the channel back on air.

Murat Ceylan spoke to news agency ANF and said, “We condemn Eutelsat’s decision to stop broadcasts of Med Nuçe and Newroz TV”. Ceylan expressed that this decision exposed a collaboration of Eutelsat and the Turkish state and said the free press whose broadcasts are stopped in Turkey and Europe are the voice of the Kurdish people. Ceylan said: “We will continue to expose dictator Erdoğan, his dirty institution RTÜK (Radio and Television Supreme Council) and their dirty collaborator Eutelsat everywhere.”

In fairness to Eutelsat, the two channels had been criticised for their unbalanced and biased reporting, which – however justified it may be claimed by the Kurds – does not comply with normal requirements for balance and objectivity.